oH 



■ 



Short Studies < 
-^ m .botany 

I-'SR CHILDREN 



^M 






BH9E 



Harriet C. Coopef 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf S.%; 



UNITED STATES OF AMEEICA. 




CAUL LINNjEUS. 



Short Studies in 
Botany 

FOR CHILDREN 



BY 

HARRIET C. COOPER 



WITH FIFTY ILLUSTRATIOXS 



NEW YORK: 46 East 14TH Street 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

BOSTON: 100 Purchase Street 



Copyright, 1892, 
By T. Y. CROWELL & CO. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. A Family Circle 7 

II. The Rose Family 19 

III. The Composite Family; or, the Dande- 

lion Relations 35 

IV. The Pulse Family 51 

V. The Oak Family 66 

VI. The Mallow Family 84 

VII. The Pine Family 98 

VIII. The Lily Family 116 

IX. The Grass Family 130 

X. The Mint Family 141 

XI. The Nettle Family 154 

XII. A Family of Pitchers 166 

XIII. Orchids 178 

5 



SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 



CHAPTER I. 

A FAMILY CIRCLE. 

A group of happy young people were 
seated on the steps of Mr. Stone's piazza. 
They were sisters and brothers and cous- 
ins and — one aunt. But Aunt Mary was 
a host in herself. One look into her face, 
and you would agree with her brother, 
who often declared that, " Everywhere 
Aunt Mary went, the girls were sure to 
go." Boys, too, he might have added, and 
even the unruly ones seemed to find a 
place in her heart and grow better there. 
Walks and talks with Aunt Mary were the 
rewards of duty well done, and many a 

7 



8 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

hard task was made lighter by her kindly 
aid and wise direction. There was no 
study this afternoon. They had been on 
a picnic, and were resting and talking it 
over, comparing collections of flowers, and 
mosses, and stones, and last year's birds' 
nests, and bugs, and beetles, and all sorts of 
boy and girl treasures. Little May wanted 
to know why Aunt Mary spoke of some 
flowers as belonging to the same family 
circle. 

" You said the nightshade we found 
was poisonous, and that there were other 
poisonous plants in the same family." 

" Yes," said Aunt Mary, " that is true, 
and with the poisonous ones are our nice 
white potatoes, and egg plants, and toma- 
toes. Then there are the tobacco, and cap- 
sicum, and the pretty petunia by the side 
of the henbane and belladonna — a curious 
family circle, is it not ? " 

11 1 should think there would be hot 




Potato Plant and Tubers. 



A FAMILY CIRCLE. II 

times between the fiery capsicum and 
nasty tobacco. I wouldn't sit, or grow 
either, beside such horrid neighbors," said 
Bessie, laughing. 

" You'd like a cosey corner with the 
belladonna, wouldn't you ? " said Frank, 
who was listening and bouncing his ball at 
the same time. 

"Why?" asked Bessie, suspecting one 
of his jokes. 

" Oh, belladonna means beautiful lady, 
doesn't it, Aunt Mary ? " 

11 Yes ; the name was given because it 
was once used to dilate the pupil of the 
eye and increase its brilliancy ; but people 
are wiser, now that they know its injurious 
properties." 

" But, Aunt Mary," persisted May, 
" why do you say they belong to the same 
family ? " 

" Because the flowers and seed are con- 
structed on the same plan ; they may not 



12 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

look alike, yet you will find the important 
parts growing in the same way. Before 
you can understand it, May, I must teach 




Belladonna. 

you something about the organs of the 
flower. Come look at this one." 

May's head was soon bending over the 
flower. 



A FAMILY CIRCLE. 



13 



11 Now, May, these flower leaves or pet- 
als are called the corolla, because they 
form a kind of cup. The little green 
leaves around the corolla are sepals, and 
form the calyx." 




Henbane. 



" Do all flowers have a calyx ? " 

" No, your white lily has none ; and 

there are flowers without a corolla — apet- 

alous ; that is, without petals." 



14 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" Why, I should not call that a flower." 

" Not a perfect flower to look at, yet the 
petals are not the most important parts." 

11 What are, Aunt Mary ? " 

" The stamens and pistils — here they 
are. 

" How shall I know stamens from 
pistils ? " 

" The pistils are in the centre of the 
flower and are rarely so numerous as the 
stamens ; they have three parts, the sta- 
mens two. Here you see the little yellow- 
ish-brown tops to the stamens — the an- 
thers — swinging like tiny bird-cages on 
top of the thread-like stems or filaments. 
You can easily remember those two parts 
of the stamen, the filament and anther. 
Now look at this anther under the micro- 
scope." 

" Why, Aunt Mary, it's all covered with 
yellow dust ! What is it ? " 

" The name is pollen. Many a bee gets 



A FAMILY CIRCLE. I 5 

his legs all covered with the fine powder 
when he dives after the honey. Remem- 
ber what the little seven-year-old said 
about ' the velvet bee, — ' 

" i O velvet bee ! you're a dusty fellow, — 
You've powdered your legs with gold,' " 

said May, delighted that she could finish 
the stanza. 

" Now let us examine the pistil, May. 
At the bottom is the germ or ovary ; from 
the ovary rises a slender stem or style, and 
on top is the stigma — three parts you 
see — ovary, style, stigma. You do not 
find each part in all flowers. Some- 
times the stigmas grow right on the 
ovary — no style at all. Sometimes the 
whole of the stamens grow on to the 
sides of the calyx, sometimes on the sides 
of the corolla. But the natural place for 
them is on the receptacle which is the end 
of the flower stem. Look closely now at 
this ovary which I have cut open." 



i6 



SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 



" Yes, Aunt Mary, I see; there are little 
divisions in it." 

" Little cells in which the seed will grow ; 
in fact there are the tiny seeds forming in 




Tobacco Plant. 



this one where the flower has dropped 
off. As I told you before, the stamens 
and pistils are the important parts of the 



A FAMILY CIRCLE. 1 7 

flower. Without them your pretty peach- 
blossoms would make no fruit. 

" Now, little one, you see the botanists 
study the construction of a plant — its 
stem, leaves, flower, and especially the 
stamens and pistils, and class them in 
families according to their resemblance. 
In this Nightshade family the likeness is 
in this — the plants all have rank-scented 
foliage, colorless juice; the parts of the 
flower are generally in fives — " 

" What do you mean by fives ? " 

" That there are five petals, five sepals, 
five pistils, and the stamens are five or 
ten ; then two cells in the ovary of the 
pistil, and many seeds. There are other 
family marks, which you may learn as you 
know more of plants." 

" Thank you, Aunt Mary," came from a 
chorus of voices, as she rose to leave. 

" You are quite welcome, friends." That 
was Aunt Marys pet name for them all, 



1 8 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" Some day we will have another lesson in 
Botany." # 

" I don't call this a lesson," said May, 
looking as nearly resentful as she knew 
how. " Such pleasant talk isn't study. 
I'd go to school all the year if I had my 
lessons this way." 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ROSE FAMILY. 

" Gather them while the dew is upon 
them, Madge." 

"What, mother?" 

11 The roses for your pot-pourri jars." 

11 Oh, yes, I had forgotten ; come, Cousin 
May." 

The pretty garden was full of roses, 
but the girls gathered only those sweet 
and full blown, and pulling off the petals, 
packed their jars full, then sprinkled over 
them a little salt, and added a few cloves. 
It was pleasant work, breathing the fra- 
grant, fresh air, touching the cool, dewy 
leaves, and laughing gaily as showers of 
rose petals fell from some overladen 
bush. 

19 



20 



SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 




Branch of the Red Rose. 



May, the little botanist, wondered to 
what family the rose belonged. 

" There's mother," said Madge, " ask 



THE ROSE FAMILY. 21 

her; but I know one thing, it is a royal 
flower, the flower of England." 

"Oh, yes; and you remember our lesson 
on the wars of the Roses, when the house 
of York took a white rose for their badge 
and Lancaster a red rose. I'll be a York- 
ist every time." 

" And I a Lancaster," said Madge ; 
" wouldn't you, mother ? " 

" I like each one too well to make war 
against it," said Mrs. Winter; "but you 
may go farther back than English history 
to find roses honored by royalty. The 
Romans were so fond of the flower that 
Nero had showers of roses sprinkled over 
his guests at his banquets, and Heliogaba- 
lus, another emperor, wanting to impress 
them with his luxury, showered roses over 
them in such quantities that several 
guests were suffocated before they could 
extricate themselves. The luxurious no- 
bles slept on couches stuffed with rose 



22 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

leaves. The rose was at first dedicated to 
the god of silence, and a rose hung over 
the table warned the guests that the con- 
versation must not be repeated, it was sub 
rosa. In later times the flower was dedi- 
cated to the Virgin Mary. Oftentimes 
roses were scattered over the dishes on 
the table." 

" Why, mother, that would be beautiful 
now; prettier than a pink tea, or yellow 
tea, or any kind of a tea that I know of." 

" Aunt Mary, will our jars of rose petals 
make attar of roses ? " asked May. 

" No ; only a sweet, fresh perfume for 
your rooms in summer. The attar is 
made from the damask rose ; twenty thou- 
sand flowers are required to make half an 
ounce of oil, which once sold for fifty dol- 
lars." 

" Will you tell us what family the rose 
belongs to ? " 

" It is of the Rose family, but you could 
not class it by one of these roses." 




The Wild Rose. 



THE ROSE FAMILY. 2$ 

" Why, mother, they are fine speci- 
mens ! " said Madge. 

" Yes, but made so by cultivation ; they 
are not in the natural state of the plant. 
A wild rose is what you must study ; that 
has only one row of petals." 

" Oh, yes, like the eglantine which 
grandmother has planted near her win- 
dow." 

" Bring one of those, Madge." 

Madge was off like a bird, and in a mo- 
ment came with a handful of the roses, 
saying, " Grandmother calls them sweet- 
briar, and that is a good name, for even 
the leaves are sweet." 

11 Yes," said her mother ; " under the 
green leaflets are small glands holding the 
perfume. Look into the centre of your 
little rose and see how full of stamens and 
pistils. Now look into one of your fine 
double roses." 

" Why, mother, there are no stamens — 



26 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

or perhaps here are one or two, but one of 
those is imperfect. What causes the dif- 
ference ? " 

" Cultivation. Roses in their natural 
state have five broad petals, and a great 
many stamens. Now go and examine all 
the different roses, and tell me at break- 
fast what you have found out." 

Half an hour later the girls came to re- 
port. " Could not wait for breakfast," as 
Madge said. " Why, mother, we found 
one rose which had lost some of its sta- 
mens, — they seemed to have changed 
into narrow petals — and in some roses 
they were part stamen and part petal ; had 
turned slightly red on one side." 

" Yes," added May, " and some had a 
little red on each side ; that rose down by 
the garden gate, Aunt Mary." 

" And, mother, in all those fine double 
roses the stamens had entirely disap- 
peared." 



THE ROSE FAMILY. 2J 

" Yes ; and the gardener has done more 
than that. In that ugly but curious green 
rose, the stamens have been changed by 
cultivation first to petals and then to 
green leaves. And in the damask rose 
we see occasionally a leafy branch occupy- 
ing the place of stamens and pistils." 

" Why, mother, I never heard of such a 
thing." 

" Yet it is true. More than a hundred 
years ago the botanist Linnaeus knew it, 
and now all agree with him that the sta- 
men is a leaf, changed to suit a special 
purpose, and that cultivation may turn it 
back to a leaf." 

11 And now, Aunt Mary, tell us some of 
the rose's relations." 

" That long row of spireas are close 
kin ; but come to breakfast, and I'll give 
you an introduction to some other cous- 
ms. 

The girls were not slow in accepting 



28 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY, 

the invitation, and looked inquiringly over 
the table, but no glimpse of a flower was 
to be seen. Only a dish of luscious straw- 
berries, to which Mrs. Winter helped 
them, saying, " Allow me to introduce you 
to one of your roses first cousins." 

" Very glad to eat you," laughed Madge, 
as she received the saucer. " It is not 
civilized to devour one's acquaintances, 
but I feel much like a cannibal just now." 

"So do I," said May. 

" We have a happy group of cousins in 
this family," said Mrs. Winter, " coming 
early when springtime comes, the rasp- 
berry, dewberry, thimbleberry — " " And 
the plum ? " asked Madge. 

" The plum belongs to the family, but 
not to the rose division ; we will call it 
second cousin. It gives its own name, 
prunus, to the first of the three divisions, 
and with it are the cherry, peach, apri- 
cot, and nectarine." 



THE ROSE FAMILY. 



2 9 



"Well, "said Madge, "they are second 
cousins to be proud of." 

" One of these cousins, the wild 
cherry, or cherry laurel, is not eatable 




Blossom of the Peach. 

because of so much prussic acid in its 
fruit." 

11 I have tasted them, mother, and I have 
seen little birds eat them." 

" Yes, and sometimes they fall over in a 



30 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

drunken state, just as men do who poison 
themselves with liquor. All this division 
have some of the prussic acid in the 
leaves or in the kernel of the seed. And 
all the rose division have astringent 
roots." 

" What is that ? " 

" A property like that in alum, only in a 
less degree." 

" Did you say there were three divis- 
ions ? " 

" Yes, the pear is the third." 

" That's a nice one," said Madge. 

" You will like it better when you know 
its nearest jcin," said Aunt Mary. 

" What are they ? " 

" The apple, quince, hawthorn, etc. I 
put the apple first of all fruits : in the 
first place, because it is good ; in the sec- 
ond place, because I get it all the year ; I 
can even eat it green." 

" But, Aunt Mary, how do we know 
these are all kin ? " 




The Hawthorn. 



THE ROSE FAMILY. 33 

" First, by the leaves ; look at one from 
a rose bush and one from a quince tree. 
What do you find at the base of the leaf ? " 

" Two little green blades ; in the rose 
they are joined on to the leaf-stock, but 
they are separate in the quince. Are 
they leaves ? " 

" No ; they never make leaves, and are 
called stipules. All the Rose family have 
them. Now hold a leaf up to the light. 
See how full of little veins, and how they 
branch out again and again, and cross 
each other in a complete net-work. So 
with all the leaves of this family ; they 
are netted-veined. Now examine the 
bark of your apple or quince. You will 
find it grows in layers, one layer added 
each year to the outside ; so they are ex- 
ogenous. What does that word mean, 
Madge ? " 

" Outside growers, I think." 

" Yes ; now look at the flowers. All 



34 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

of this family have regular flowers — four 
or five petals of the same shape. Then 
examine the buds. You find the petals 
curiously folded ; two petals entirely over- 
lap the others, two are entirely under the 
others, and two have one edge over and 
one edge under. Great families have 
sometimes their coat of arms or family 
badge. So you may draw for this great 
plant family a coat of arms which will 
show these distinguishing marks." 

"Oh, yes, mother! I'll draw a quince 
leaf with its stipules and netted veins, and 
a little block from the trunk of an apple 
tree where I can see how it grows in 
layers, and — what else ? Oh, yes ! a 
flower from grandmother's Sweetbriar, 
with its five petals and many stamens ; or 
a wild rose would do just as well. What 
a pretty coat of arms ! " 



CHAPTER III. 

THE COMPOSITE FAMILY ; OR, THE DANDE- 
LION RELATIONS. 

11 Well, May, I've promised grand- 
mother to try it a week." 

" Try what, Madge ? " 

" Why, to talk about flowers instead of 
girls." 

" I'm glad of it. I love flowers better 
than anything." 

" Grandmother was right, no doubt," 
said Madge, " but it is dreadful hard not to 
tell what one girl says about another. Why, 
we can't even ' trade compliments ' ; and 
as to talking about those tame flowers in- 
stead of spicy girls, it will take all the 
fun out of life. Just look at that dan- 
delion ! What could one say about that ? 

35 



36 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

Poor bright-eyed little thing; it wouldn't 
be any the worse if I ate it up." 

" As you did several of its budding 
brothers and sisters at dinner about two 
hours ago." 

Madge laughed as she answered her 
mother, who sat sewing just inside the 
window. " Well, mother, they will not be 
missed from such a numerous family ; they 
should be embroidered on the flag of our 
country, for they grow from Maine to 
Texas, do they not ? " 

" Yes, and no wonder, with their loco- 
motive advantages." 

" How is that ? " 

" Their feathery balls of seed float far 
and wide — a breath of air wafts them 
along — and when they fall, the bearded, 
pointed ends of the seed are pushed into 
the ground by the light pappus which 
keeps waving to and fro." 

"Aunt Mary," said May, " where did 




The Ox-Eye Daisy. 



THE COMPOSITE FAMILY. 39 

the little plant get its name ? I don't 
think it is much of a dandy or a lion 
either." 

" The name came from the leaf. Bring 
me one, Madge." 

Madge rushed after the leaf and came 
in, saying, " Oh, what ugly teeth-like 
edges ! " 

" These ' ugly teeth,' as you call them, 
reminded some old botanist of a lions 
tooth, hence the name in Latin — dens 
leoiiis, which we have gradually changed to 
dandelion. Its botanical name, taraxicum, 
is used only in medicine." 

" I did not know that medicine could be 
made of it," and Madge's nose went up, 
with evident determination to snub the 
flower henceforward. 

" The root is the medicinal part," said 
her mother, " but you must not give up the 
little flower because of that ; many of its 
relations have healing properties." 



40 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" What relations has it ? " 

" At least nine thousand. Your com- 
mon little dandelion belongs to the largest 
plant family in the world. One-tenth of all 
the flowering plants on the globe claim kin 
with it ; they are all ' Composites,' that is 
the family name." 

" Please tell me some of dandy's kins- 
folk." 

" The little English daisy is first cousin ; 
so are all the asters, marigolds, coreopsis, 
dahlias, the great sunflowers, bright 
golden-rods, and ageratums. Some of the 
cousins belong to the royal family, and 
some are beggars." 

" How is that, mother ? " 

" What is the royal flower of Scotland ? " 
asked her mother. 

" The thistle, the thistle," said both girls 
in chorus. 

"And what is the royal flower of Ger- 
- many ? " 



THE COMPOSITE FAMILY. 41 




The Dwarf Thistle. 



" Is it the corn-flower ? " asked Madge. 
"Yes; that was the old Emperor Wil- 



42 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

Ham's favorite of all flowers. And what 
is the royal flower of Japan ? " 

" Oh, we know that, don't we, May ? the 
chrysanthemums have been all the rage 
here." 

" Well," said her mother, " they are all 
composites — asterworts they are some- 
times called, and all are cousins to the 
modest little dandelion. Crowned heads 
as they are, they grow just as willingly be- 
side little dandelion as in any other 
place." 

" But what beggar cousins has little 
lion-tooth ? " asked Madge. 

u The beggar-ticks or bur-marigolds ; 
you know how they cling to your dress." 

" The hateful things. I can't enjoy run- 
ning through the fields, or gathering the 
golden-rod from the branch, for those beg- 
gar-ticks. I wouldn't claim kin if I were 
dandy." 

" The ragweed is another poor relation." 




Golden Rod (and Phlox). 



THE COMPOSITE FAMILY. 45 

" What ! that miserable weed which the 
cows eat and spoil the milk ? " 

" Yes, the very same ; and there is the 
hogweed and bitterweed, and the cockle- 
bur, and Spanish needle." 

" Well, dandy, you are in poor com- 
pany. I hope there are some good 
enough to make up for these." 

" You will find some useful ones in 
the garden — the salsify, lettuce, and 
artichoke. Some others yield valuable 
medicine — arnica, camomile, elecampane, 
tansy, and boneset for teas, and colt's-foot 
for coughs. One innocent little cousin is 
used to flavor absinthe, a French liqueur, 
and so loses its pretty name, artemesia, 
being now better known as wormwood. 
The Persian insect powder is made of the 
dried flowers of the chrysanthemum ro- 
seum." 

" What a difference in the members of 
one family. I don't see how the dear lit- 



46 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

tie English daisy can be kin to the coarse 
sunflower, or the Scotch thistle related to 
the blue corn-flower and chrysanthemums. 
It seems to me that they are no more 
alike than the nations they represent." 

" Yet, my daughter, they are all alike in 
some important points, the flowers and 
seed being constructed on the same plan. 
First, all have compound flowers, that is, 
many little flowers form one head ; second, 
the flower head is surrounded by a set of 
bracts, or green leaflets ; third, there are 
as many stamens as divisions in the co- 
rolla, almost always five ; fourth, the sta- 
mens are united into one by their anthers 
or heads." 

" Now, mother, I will make the family 
coat of arms, and little dandy shall repre- 
sent the compound flowers. It will be 
quite an honor to represent nine thousand 
plants." 

" Yes, indeed ; and there are six hun- 




Colt's-Foot (and Blackthorn). 



THE COMPOSITE FAMILY. 49 

dred species in the United States, nearly 
all herbs. In Chili they are bushes, in St. 
Helena they are trees. Of late years the 
chrysanthemums and immortelles are most 
cultivated, blooming when all the compos- 
ite cousins are taking their winter rest. 
Loveliest and latest of all comes the chrys- 
anthemum. Its flowers of purple and 
yellow and purest white, blooming amid 
December's frosts, have given rise to a 
legend thus written in verse : — 

" ' And it is told in stories old, 

That this fair blossom first 
On that blest morn, when Christ was born, 

Into white beauty burst. 
Perhaps — ah, well ! we cannot tell, 

If it be truly so : 
I but repeat the legend sweet, 

And only this I know — 
That in the prime of Christmas time 

The Christ's sweet flowers blow.' " 

" That is a sweet verse, mother. I be- 



50 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY, 

gin to have more respect for little dande- 
lion when I find it has such lovely rela- 
tions. As to the 'country cousins,' they 
may be useful in their place. In a family 
of nine thousand no wonder there are 
some ' black sheep.' " 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PULSE FAMILY. 

Madge and Cousin May had their heads 
together, talking girl-fashion in mysterious 
whispers over something immensely im- 
portant. Madge jumped up and ran to 
her mother, saying : " Mother, we want 
you to give us pulse for dinner every day. 
Will you ? " 

"Yes/' said Mrs. Winter. "Why do 
you want pulse ? " 

" Oh, we will tell you after ten days ! " 
Then followed various winks and pinches 
and cautions not to tell, and from that 
time until dinner hour, glances at the 
clock, w T hich they had serious doubts was 
moving at all. 

All things come to those who wait, even 

51 



52 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

impatiently; so did the dinner, and the 
girls watched with eager eyes as the 
covers were removed. When the last one 
was lifted they turned, disappointed, with 
questioning glances toward Mrs. Winter, 
who said : " Send your plates ; I will help 
you to the pulse." 

Madge lifted hers with puzzled look, 
and when she saw only a generous spoon- 
ful of peas and one of beans deposited 
thereon, exclaimed : " You don't call peas 
and beans pulse, do you, mother ? " 

" Yes; why not?" 

The girls looked chagrined. They had 
been reading the story of " Daniel," and 
full of faith in everything he did, deter- 
mined to try his recipe for good looks. 

"Why," said Madge, "Daniel and his 
two friends ate pulse for ten days, and at 
the end of that time were fairer of counte- 
nance than any other princes ; but I 
thought ' pulse ' was some delightful and 
delicate food." 




Kidney-Bean Flower. 



THE PULSE FAMILY. 55 

" No doubt Daniel found it good," said 
her mother; " he had been all his life ac- 
customed to simple food and pure water, 
and knew well that it was better for him. 
Pulse is a name given to several kinds of 
nutritious and wholesome food." 

" Is * pulse ' a family name? " asked May, 
remembering their talk about the Compos- 
ite family to which little dandelion be- 
longed. 

" Yes, that is the common family name, 
though botanists call it leguminosceT 

" What does that mean ? " 

"Bearing seed in a legume — a pod 
which opens on both sides, like the pea or 
bean." 

" Is it as large a family as the compos- 
ite ? What is the coat of arms ? " 

" One question at a time, Madge. It is 
a large family ; at least sixty-five hundred 
species claim kin, having the same coat 
of arms which is this : all bear legumes ; 



56 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY, 

all have compound leaves, that is a num- 
ber of leaflets arranged on each side the 
leaf-stalk. Each one of the sixty-five hun- 
dred species have these two marks, and 
so claim kin. Quite a family tree you 
can make of them ; a very remarkable tree 
it would be, bearing flowers, fruits, gums, 
drugs, and perfumes, yet none more use- 
ful to man than the pulse which Daniel 
ate." 

The slightest possible rise in Madge's 
nose indicated her opinion of Daniels 
taste ; but little May wanted to know more 
about the Pulse family, so that she could 
recognize any member that might nod to 
her from the garden or roadside, or peep 
at her through the sedges. 

" There are three divisions to this 
family," said Mrs. Winter ; " the pulse, 
brasaletto, and mimosa. The first is the 
largest, and you may know a member of 
that division by the shape of the flower, 
which is papilionaceous. " 



THE PULSE FAMILY. 57 

" Dear me, what a name ! " 

And May looked as if somebody ought 
to apologize, or be reported for cruelty to 
animals. 

But Mrs. Winter, always ready to help 
over hard places, said: " An old man named 
Linnaeus, who loved flowers just as you do, 
and learned much about them, fancied 
that these flowers resembled a butterfly, 
so he gave them that long name." 

" Oh, yes ! " Madge exclaimed. " I know 
papilio is the Latin for butterfly ; the pea 
and bean flowers do look like butterflies." 

" Well, do you know any others ? " 

The girls thought a moment. May 
spoke first. 

" Wistaria," said she, her face brighten- 
ing with the remembrance of her favorite, 
blooming so early in large, graceful clus- 
ters of lilac flowers. 

" Then there is the sweet pea and acacia 
and locust, all have butterfly flowers — " 



58 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" Papilionaceous," interrupted Madge. 
May laughed and repeated the word, this 
time without difficulty, and then she con- 
tinued : — 

" I saw this morning a wild vine creep- 
ing close to the ground and having large 
lilac papilionaceous blossoms. Does that 
belong to the family ? " 

" Yes ; that is the butterfly pea, one of 
the country cousins." 

" Do we have any fruits in this family ? " 
asked Madge. 

. v There is the tamarind, a fine-flavored 
fruit, but as it does not grow in the United 
States you know little about it. And 
there is the ground pea, with which you 
have at least an eating acquaintance." 

" Oh, yes ; how nice the hot parched 
peas are, and better still in candy. I have 
seen it in bloom on grandpa's farm ; but 
where were the peas ? they do not hang 
on the vine." 




Branch and Flower of Robinia Pseud -Acacia. 



THE PULSE FAMILY. 6l 

" The peas grow in the ground, hence 
the name. Do you know, Madge, that 
your pet cow likes pulse as well as you 
do ? " 

" What member of the family does 
Daisy feed on ? " 

" There she is now, in a field of pulse. 
Clover and lucerne are as good for her as 
pulse was for Daniel." 

" I love to watch her enjoy it. She 
chews it over and over as I do ^um." 

" Well, I hope you will retire to the field 
with Daisy whenever you must chew gum. 
Perhaps you will think more of the Pulse 
family if I tell you that it furnishes some 
of your gum. Gum tolu, for instance, and 
its cousin, gum arabic, are one of the aca- 
cias. Then there are copavia, tragacanth, 
Senegal, and kino, besides such drugs and 
dyes as licorice, catechu, senna, indigo, 
logwood, camwood, and Brazilwood, and 
for perfume there is the Tonga bean." 



62 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" Do all the family have flowers of the 
butterfly shape ? " 

" No ; the flowers are very different in 
the third division, the mimosa." 

" Why, that is grandmothers favorite 
tree ! " exclaimed Madge. " The shaded 
rose-pink flowers are like pompons of silk, 
with delicate perfume; and then, mother, 
the leaves are sensitive. I have many a 
time slipped up quietly and touched one 
just as gently as possible, but the leaflets 
would instantly fold themselves up as if 
afraid I would hurt them." 

" Yes, I have, too," added May ; " and 
out in the fields I have often seen run- 
ning over the weeds a briery little vine 
covered with dainty little pompons of the 
same kind of flowers, and with leaves so 
sensitive that they close if your dress 
barely brushes them." 

" That is the common sensitive plant. 
Is it of the same family ? " asked Madge. 

" Yes," said her mother. 



THE PULSE FAMILY. 63 

" Isn't it funny to think the big tree 
and little vine are cousins ! — a giant and 
a dwarf." 

" There are many curious plant cousins. 
The name of this division of the family 
tree is mimosa, meaning ' to mimic ' ; so 
named by some one who fancied that in 
these movements the plants imitated ani- 
mal life. If you were to go to Aspinwall, 
and step from the car into a patch of 
mimosas, you would be startled. The 
whole patch would disappear, or seem to, 
so closely and suddenly do they shut up 
their leaves. But they open again as 
soon as you move away. In India, on 
the Ganges, you may find a mimosa called 
the ' moving plant.' All day the leaflets 
move, up and down, from side to side, or 
in circles, without ceasing, and when there 
is not a zephyr to stir them — at night 
they sleep." 

" Do all plants sleep, aunt ? " 



64 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" They seem to, May, but all do not 
close their leaves. One kind of locust 
droops down its leaves, while the honey 
locust raises them upright; and they do 
not, like the birds, go to bed with the sun. 
One little sensitive plant folds its leaves 
and goes to rest before sunset, and opens 
again before sunrise. Now, can you re- 
member in what all the plants of this 
family agree, so that we may know them 
by their coat of arms ? " 

" Oh, yes ! " said May, " the seeds are 
in a legume. Ill draw an open pea-pod 
to represent that, and the leaves are com- 
pound. We can sketch a little sensitive 
plant with the tiny leaflets on each side a 
leaf-stalk, to show that mark." 

" Or grandmother's mimosa tree," said 
Madge ; " and then, mother, let us have 
the flower from our sweet-pea vine, to 
show the butterfly — I mean the papilio- 
naceous form of the pulse division of the 



THE PULSE FAMILY. 65 

family. Have the leguwtinoscz no royal 
flower among the sixty-five hundred 
species ? " 

" Long ago," said her mother, " history 
recorded the fact that for some crime the 
first earl of Anjou made a pilgrimage to 
Rome, and was there scourged with twigs 
of broom, or planta genista. Hencefor- 
ward the humble plant was painted on 
the shields of the house of Anjou, and 
Henry II., being the first of that house to 
rule in England, bore it on his escutcheon, 
and from that received his name, Plantag- 
enet. Fourteen kings bore the same coat 
of arms, so I think you may count the 
humble genista of the Pulse family as a 
royal plant." 



CHAPTER V. 

THE OAK FAMILY. 

Half a dozen young girls were gathered 
around Aunt Mary, to eat her cakes and 
hear her stories. The cakes were whole- 
some, and the stories sure to be seasoned 
with stray bits of advice ; but the girls 
believed in Aunt Mary thoroughly, and 
caught some of her enthusiasm, even when 
she forgot her story and strayed off on 
some study of nature. So it happened on 
this occasion, which was a bright October 
afternoon, and they were all picnicking 
under the oaks of " Forest Hill." Now 
and again, as a breeze stirred the branches, 
an acorn dropped, and May — " hazel-eyed 
May," the girls called her — ran to secure, 
and, of course, to examine it, asking, as she 

66 




The Oak. 



THE OAK FAMILY.. 69 

returned, " Is this the fruit of that great 
tree, Aunt Mary ? " 

" Yes," said her aunt. 

" Well, I never saw any flower on an 
oak tree, did you, girls ? " 

The girls thought not, except Madge, 
who remembered some tassel-like clusters 
hanging from the branches in the spring. 

" Yes ; those were flowers," said Aunt 
Mary, " or a number of flowers together, 
called a " catkin." The tree has two kinds : 
those in the catkins are staminate flowers; 
the pistillate flowers are separate, not more 
than one or two in a place, and surrounded 
by little scales, which finally form this 
acorn cup. The acorn itself is the ripened 
germ of the pistil." 

" It isn't good to eat, is it ? " 

" Taste and see." 

And so the little investigator did ; but 
a wry face and vigorous spitting soon 
answered her question. 



yO SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" Yet," said Aunt Mary, " acorns are 
sometimes used for food, even in this coun- 
try. Indians in the far West grind the 
kernel into meal, wash it to extract the 
bitter, dry it in the sun, and make bread 
of it. In the Asiatic country of Kurdistan 
is an oak from which a sweet sap drips 
and hardens into small grains, which the 
natives use for sugar ; ' oak manna ' it is 
sometimes called. Centuries ago the Sax- 
ons valued the oaks of England, not so 
much for the timber as for the acorns, on 
which they fattened their hogs. ' Mast,' 
they called the acorn food, and even now 
we hear the great Oak family sometimes 
spoken of as the ' mastworts.' The right 
of feeding hogs in the oak forests was 
called by the Saxons ' pannage,' and was 
considered so valuable that monasteries 
were endowed with the right, and it was 
also given to kings' daughters as part of 
their dowry." 



THE OAK FAMILY. J\ 

" Perhaps that was the reason they were 
so angry with William the Conqueror 
when he took the ' New Forest ' for a 
hunting-ground," said one of the older 
girls. 

11 Yes ; and can you tell us anything of 
English oaks farther back than that 
time ? " 

Madge thought a moment, and said 
slowly, " I remember something about the 
Druids. Did they worship this tree ? " 

" They considered it sacred, and wor- 
shipped always in oak forests ; indeed, the 
name Druid possibly comes from the Cel- 
tic ' der, ' an oak. But the mistletoe, 
which w r as often found on its branches, was 
the object of their peculiar veneration. 
When a branch of it was found, they 
assembled around the oak with banquet 
and song. A white-robed priest cut the 
mistletoe with a golden sickle ; two other 
white-robed priests held a white cloak to 



72 



SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 



catch the sacred plant as it fell ; and two 
white heifers were sacrificed with joy and 
feasting. The plant was cut into pieces, 




Branch of Mistletoe. 



divided among the worshippers, who wore 
it as a charm to protect from all evil." 
" There's a bunch of it now," said one of 



THE OAK FAMILY. 73 

the group, "but it's too high to see if 
there are any berries. Is it good for any- 
thing ? " 

" It is more beautiful than useful, as are 
all parasites," said Aunt Mary. 

" What are parasites ? " questioned May. 

" Plants which grow upon other plants 
— live on the labors of others. People do 
that sometimes, and the world has very 
little use for them/' 

" We found a hard, round ball growing 
on a small oak ; what was that, Aunt 
Mary ? " 

" Probably a species of oak-gall. A 
gall-fly pierces the bark with her sharp 
bill, deposits her eggs there, and with 
them a poisonous fluid which forms the 
gall — a kind of vegetable tumor, we may 
call it. These galls are useless. The real 
gall-nuts are found in Asia, and are all 
sizes, from a pea to a large cherry. The 
' tannic acid ' within them is used in mak- 



74 



SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 



ing ink. The best galls are blue, green, or 
black, and collected before the eggs are 
hatched. Those taken afterward are white, 
and are of inferior quality." 

" Are the pretty green and pink balls 




Oak Leaves and Apples. 



which we find in spring on oak branches 
a kind of gall ? " 

" No ; they are commonly called oak 
apples, and said to appear about Easter on 



THE OAK FAMILY. 75 

the tender twigs or leaves of the common 
oak. They are very pretty, but the 
spongy, paper-like ball is entirely useless." 

" Is the tannic acid of the gall-nuts what 
they use in tanning leather ?" asked one 
of the girls. 

" No, dear," said Aunt Mary; "the bark 
furnishes the materials for tanning, besides 
giving us the bright yellow dye, quer-citron. 
One specie of oak in Arabia is found 
covered with kermes — insects which, like 
the cochineal, make a fine red dye." 

Little Daisy wanted to know which of 
all the Oak family was the prettiest, and 
her aunt said : — 

" The live oak, so valuable for ship- 
building, is said to be the handsomest, 
because of its glossy, evergreen leaves ; 
but these grand spreading trees above us 
are fine indeed." 

" You may now add to your list of use- 
ful products obtained from the oak, another 
of which you think very highly." 



j6 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" What is that ? " asked all the girls in 
chorus. 

Aunt Mary pointed to one of their ten- 
nis rackets lying near. 

" Why, that is not oak, is it ? the handle 
I know is cork," said Madge. 

" And cork is the bark of an oak tree 
which grows in Spain and countries near. 
They begin barking the tree when fifteen 
years old, and repeat the process every ten 
years." 

" Does it not kill the tree, Aunt Mary? " 

" No ; it is said to make it grow more 
vigorously ; a barked tree lives about one 
hundred and fifty years. Your life pre- 
servers, cork jackets, cork soles, corks for 
bottles, and a thousand things come from 
the cork oak. ' Light as a cork/ we say, 
and yet twelve thousand tons of this use- 
ful bark are cut annually." 

"Well," said May, "I believe the Oak 
family is nearly as useful as any we have 
found ; is it not, Aunt Mary ? " 



THE OAK FAMILY. 



77 



" Yes ; if you remember that we have 
amon^ the nearest kin the beeches and 
hazelnuts and chestnuts and chinquapins." 




Branch of the Beech. 



" Not the nice chestnuts we buy from 
our grocer, Aunt Mary ? " 

" Yes ; there are many in this country, 



78 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

but the finest come from the south of 

Europe, where they form the vegetable 

diet of the peasantry. Remember the 

rhyme, — 

" ' For chestnuts roasted by a gentle heat, 
No city can the learned Naples beat.' 

" The school boys and girls of some of 
our southern states will tell you what fun 
it is to go hunting chinquapins. The 
opening of the burrs is rather prickly fun 
sometimes, but they manage to gather 
baskets full, and the girls string the glossy, 
bead-like nuts, and cover themselves with 
as many necklaces as an Indian princess. 
All this family of shrubs and trees have 
deciduous stipules. " 

" What does deciduous mean?" said 
May. " I know that a stipule is a kind of 
make-believe leaf which sometimes grows 
at the base of the larger real leaves." 

" Yes ; and when stipules fall early, 
before the leaves do, they are ' deciduous/ 



THE OAK FAMILY. 



79 



Then all this family have leaves growing 
alternately on the stems, and with straight 
veins. The flowers are without petals 
and monoecious, that is, two kinds on one 
tree, and the staminate flowers are in 
catkins. The fruit is a nut enclosed in a 
cup or sac." 

" Aunt Mary, did not the old Greeks 
prize the oak very much ? " 

" Yes ; and made it an emblem of hospi- 
tality. But the Romans went further. A 
chaplet of oak leaves was given as the 
' corona civica,' and to obtain it, it was 
necessary to be a citizen, to slay an en- 
emy, to save the life of a Roman, or to 
reconquer a field of battle. The Germans 
love better the beech, ' Buch,' they call it, 
and our word book comes from it, since 
the sides of large books were formerly 
made of beech. The tree is said to be so 
rarely struck by lightning that woodmen 
seek its shelter during thunder storms." 



8o SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

Daisy thought she liked the chestnut 
best of all the family, and wanted to know 
if they were not so large as the oak or 
beech. 

" Some of the oldest and largest trees 
are chestnuts/' said her aunt. " On Mount 
Etna is a grand old tree. In the hollow 
trunk, which is one hundred and sixty feet 
in circumference, shepherds and their flocks 
often take refuge. It is spoken of as the 
' hundred horse-chestnut,' because of a 
tradition that Joanna of Aragon once 
visited it with all the nobility of Catania, 
and that all found protection beneath its 
branches." 

" But oaks seem to have made the best 
hiding-places, Aunt Mary," said Madge. 
" I remember the ' royal oak/ where King 
Charles hid among its boughs." 

" Yes," exclaimed May ; " and I know 
the ' charter oak ' at Hartford." 

Another bright-eyed girl had read of 




3 H 



U 



THE OAK FAMILY. 83 

the " oak of Torwood," in whose hollow 
trunk William Wallace found refuge. 

" Three cheers for the Oak family," said 
Aunt Mary ; then at her suggestion, they 
all agreed to plant each year some mem- 
ber of it, and Daisy declared her intention 
to "plant a chestnut every time." 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE MALLOW FAMILY. 

Little Daisy sat perched in a great arm 
chair, puzzling her brain over the morning 
paper. It must be interesting, or father 
would not pore over it so long when she 
was aching to talk to him ; but somehow 
she could not find the " story part," or 
anything that attracted her attention, 
except three words printed in large letters 
— " Cotton is King," so she laid aside the 
paper, saying, " Aunt Mary, who is King 
Cotton ? I never heard of him before." 

" Didn't you, Daisy ? Well, come with 
me and I'll show you one of his family." 

" Why, auntie, kings don't live in this 
country." 

" No ; but sometimes we take care of a 
stray twig of royalty." 84 



THE MALLOW FAMILY, 85 

Then Mrs. Winter carefully rolled up 
her knitting and went out to her flower 
beds. Daisy followed until she paused in 
front of a coarse plant, saying, " Not a 
very fine king, is it, Daisy ? " 

" Now, auntie, that is nothing but a 
stalk of okra, and I have been wondering 
why you had it among your pretty flowers." 

" No, child, it is not okra, but a near 
relative — second cousin, I believe. It is 
cotton, and I did put it here because I 
love to see the plant which filled so many 
of the fields around my old home. It 
resembles okra, and no wonder, for they 
both belong to the Mallow family." 

" O auntie ! Are they kin to the 
marsh mallows ? — but I forgot ; marsh 
mallows are candy and not plants." 

" You are not far wrong, Daisy ; the 
marsh mallow paste to which you are so 
partial is made of the root of one of the 
family — a species known as Althea offi- 



86 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

cinalis. Is that name too long to remem- 
ber ?" 

" No, auntie, because I know the first 
part, Althea, so well. That is the name 
of your favorite tree down by the lake, 
which you told me was sometimes called 
the rose of Sharon. It is a pretty tree, 
and has a pretty name, I think." 

" Yes, and a good one, for Althea means 
to cure." 

" Does it cure anything ? " 

" Yes ; the root of one species is full of 
mucilage, which is said to make an excel- 
lent poultice. But I believe the poultices 
are not made from my shrubby Althea, 
but from a smaller mallow." 

" Do I know any other mallow, Aunt 
Mary ? " 

" Yes ; there is your bright hollyhock in 
the garden — the Althea rosea — and the 
creeping dwarf mallow, with its flat, circu- 
lar fruit, which you children called 



THE MALLOW FAMILY, 87 

1 cheeses ' ; and over there among my flow- 
ers, is the hibiscus." 

" Oh, yes ; but I don't like that, for the 
flowers bloom only one day." 

" Then you would not like its cousin, 
hibiscus tritonum, or ' flower of an hour,' 
which blooms only in midday sunshine. 
One kind has flowers a foot broad, and 
there is in the East Indies a species whose 
bright scarlet flowers stain black, and are 
used to black shoes. The one you know 
best is the okra." 

" Oh, yes, I like that ; but have all the 
mallows such coarse flowers ? " 

" Yes, most of them; but here is the 
abutilon or Indian mallow, with its pretty 
bells hanging by hundreds ; that is not 
coarse. One good thing is said of the 
Mallow family." 

" What is that ? " 

" Not one has any unwholesome quality. 
All abound in mucilage, and most of them 



88 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

have a fibrous or stringy bark, which 
makes good fibre for paper. You know 
the saying, * pretty is as pretty does,' and 
no plant family does more work for the 
world than the mallows." 

" How can plants work, auntie ? " 

" By furnishing materials for us to work 
with. This one member of the mallow 
connection, this ugly cotton, gives employ- 
ment to so many thousands of men, wo- 
men, and children, and so controls the 
world's markets, that people sometimes 
call it ' King Cotton.' " 

" I think linen or silk should have the 
title ; it is far more beautiful, and kings 
wear it more." 

" Possibly so, but neither linen nor silk 
do so much for the world. Cotton well 
earns its title." 

" I should like to see the cotton in 
bloom, Aunt Mary." 

" Well, here is a pink blossom, and un- 
der these leaves a white one." 




Common Mallow. 



THE MALLOW FAMILY. 91 

" Why, I thought the white cotton was 
the blossom ! " 

" No ; the blossom as well as the leaf is 
something like okra. That pink blossom 
is older than the other. They come out 
pale yellow or white and turn pink." 

" Well, auntie, how can one always 
know a mallow ? What is the coat of arms 
of this royal family ? " 

" You may know them, first, by the 
stamens, w T hich have their tiny stems, or 
filaments, united into a single tube, and 
they grow on the base of the petals. Sec- 
ond, you know them by the leaves, which 
do not grow opposite each other on the 
stems but one above the other, alter- 
nately, and are palmately veined, the 
small veins in the leaves running out like 
fingers from the palm of your hand. 
Third, they all have five petals and five 
sepals." 

" What are petals and sepals ? " 



92 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" Each tiny leaf of the flower is called a 
petal ; each leaf of the green calyx under 
the flower is a sepal. Lastly, the bark of 
all the mallows is a tough fibre and the 
plant is full of mucilage. Now can you 
repeat the coat of arms ? " 

" Let me see, auntie — many stamens 
united in a tube ; leaves not opposite but 
alternate ; five petals and five sepals ; 
tough, stringy bark, and mucilage in the 
plant — like okra, you know. But, grand- 
ma, if the cotton is not the bloom, what is 
it ? " 

" Cotton is a fine hair-covering for the 
seed. The mallows are very downy, hairy 
plants, and in the cotton plant the hair is 
so long and so abundant that when the 
seed pods burst there is a field of snow- 
flakes." 

" I'd like to be a cotton-picker. It 
would be great fun, wouldn't it, auntie ? " 



THE MALLOW FAMILY. 93 

" Yes, for half an hour ; after that your 
back would give notice to quit. Yet some 




The Cotton Plant (species found in Eastern Countries). 

women on our farm used to pick out their 
hundred pounds a day." 



94 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" Was it ready to spin then ? " 

" No ; it must be ginned." 

" What is that ? " 

" That is getting the cotton off from the 
seed. A hundred years ago it was done 
with the fingers. Very slow work it was. 
It was counted a good task for a long win- 
ter evening to pick out a shoe full of seed." 

" Then, auntie, how did the factories 
ever get enough ? " 

" There were no factories then; spin- 
ning and weaving was done by hand. 
Cotton was rare and dear. A ship with 
eight bales on board was seized by the 
English, because they declared that the 
whole of the United States could not raise 
so much, and, therefore, it must have come 
from India, and belonged to them. 

" Some day I hope you may see a gin- 
nery. Wagon-loads of cotton are driven 
under the great fan tubes, and the white 
flakes are sucked up to the top of the 



THE MALLOW FAMLLY. 95 

building, where machines tear the cotton 
from the seed, pack it in bales, and bind 
it with iron ties ready to be sent to the 
world's factories. Then they card, and 
spin, and weave, and dye, and stamp it, and 
you may have a pretty calico, gingham, 
sateen, or muslin — all made of cotton, — 
besides thousands of other useful things." 

" What do they do with the seed, — 
throw it away ? " 

" When I was young, Daisy, they did 
nothing with it but throw it over the 
fields, but now the cotton-seed oil-mills use 
every part. A fine lint is left on the 
seed ; that is scraped off by a machine, 
which also cards it into wadding for com- 
forts and such purposes. Then the oil is 
pressed out of the seed, and so well refined 
that only experts can tell it from pure 
olive oil. The crushed seed are not yet 
thrown away, but ground into a fine meal 
for cows, all except the hulls, which are 



96 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

fed to cattle, or used to make fertilizers. 
I have known the engine of an oil-mill to 
be run when using only the hulls for fuel. 
Not one thing is lost." 

" What did the world do without cotton, 
Aunt Mary ? " 

" Oh, they used flax and many other 
fibrous materials, but the world has used 
cotton a long time, only in smaller quan- 
tities. The old historian Herodotus 
speaks of using cotton several hundred 
years before our Saviour was born. We 
read that Caesar covered the forum and 
the ' sacred way ' with awnings made of 
cotton, and thousands flocked to see the 
curious fabric. In eastern countries they 
were most skilful in weaving by hand the 
beautiful cotton cloths. Look for k Dacca' 
in your geography, and then remember 
that as the city where they could scarcely 
find names beautiful enough to describe 
their fabrics, and stamped them ' Abra- 



THE MALLOW FAMILY. 97 

wan,' or flowing water; 'Shabnam,' the 
evening dew ; and ( Webs of woven 
wind.' " 

" Well, auntie, this Mallow family is 
worth knowing. I'll think more of your 
cotton plant. You said that one hundred 
years ago the United States raised only 
about eight bales a year ; how much is 
made now ? " 

" If you multiply that number by one 
million, it will hardly exceed the crop this 
year." 

" Why, auntie, that would make cloth 
enough to wrap around the whole world, 
wouldn't it ? " 

" Perhaps so. The eight million bales 
is about two billion pounds, and one 
pound will make six yards of muslin. 
How large a sphere would that cover? 
Ask brother John to make the calcula- 
tion." 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE PINE FAMILY. 

" Aunt Mary, please tell us about an- 
other plant family this morning. Madge 
and Daisy say they are willing." 

" Well, my little botanist, run out for a 
walk first, and bring me a basket of pine 
cones from the woods; perhaps we can 
make something pretty." 

The ramble was pleasant through the 
forest of Georgia pines, with their soft car- 
pet of straw, and fragrant odors, and the 
girls were too busy picking up the finest 
cones to be disturbed by what some called 
the u sad sighing" of the pines. 

Aunt Mary was quite satisfied with 
their selection, and they watched her with 
interest as she arranged the cones into a 

98 




A Grove of Pine Trees. 



THE PIXE FAMILY. ioi 

picturesque hanging basket, planting seed 
within each little scale. How pretty it 
would be with the bright green blades 
springing from the upper ones and the 
maurandia trailing below ! 

As usual, May wanted to know all 
about the cones, or " burrs " as she called 
them, and was glad to learn that the tree 
which bore them gave its own name to a 
large family connection. " For," said Aunt 
Mary, " the true Pine family are all coni- 
fers." 

"How do they class them?" asked 
Madge ; " they have no flowers to exam- 
ine." 

" A botanist looks closer than you do," 
replied her aunt. " He finds two kinds of 
flowers ; one, having only stamens, forms 
a reddish cluster around the young spring 
shoots, and the young cones have under 
each scale a pistillate flower. Pull off a 
scale from one of these cones and you will 



102 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

find what was a pistillate flower ripened 
into a two-winged seed." 

" Are two kinds of flowers on the same 
tree ? " 

" Yes; botanists call them 'monoecious,' 
which means, in one household." 

" Well, I never did take them for flow- 
ers, Aunt Mary." 

".No; for they, have neither corolla nor 
calyx." 

" Why," said May, " I thought it took a 
corolla and calyx to be a flower." 

" No," replied her aunt ; " botanists call 
anything a flower which has stamens and 

pistils." 

i 

" Then they don't add much to the 
beauty of the world," Madge remarked in 
rather a criticising tone. 

" Let us see what this Pine family is 
good for, before we decide," said Aunt 
Mary. " Do you not admire the curled 
pine with which your room is finished ? " 




Fragment of a Pine Branch. 



THE PINE FAMILY. 105 

" Will these trees make curled pine ? " 
" Certainly, and a thousand other things. 
Some of them grow straight up for more 
than seventy feet without a branch, fur- 
nishing tall masts for our ships." 

" Oh, yes ! " said Daisy, " my geography 
says that the mountain forests of Maine 
grow pine trees for ship building." 

" Yes ; some of the Pine family love the 
mountains. Their botanical name, Pinus, 
is near kin to the Celtic word Pin, which 
means a mountain. From the Atlantic to 
the Pacific you will find some species of 
this family growing on the mountains. 
But these southern forests furnish the tar, 
pitch, and turpentine, besides immense 
quantities of lumber for building." 

" Aunt Mary, are cedars kin to pines ? " 
" Oh, yes, Daisy ! very close kin." 
" First cousin, I guess," said the little 
girl, " and my pencil is made of red cedar." 
" Mother keeps her woollens in a cedar 



106 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

chest," added May, " and we have a cedar 
closet and cedar pails, and — oh, I don't 
know how many things made of cedar ! " 

" Can you tell me, Madge," said her 
mother, " what a beautiful house was made 
of cedar ? " 

Madge brightened as she answered : 
" The Temple of Solomon was made of 




Cones of Cedar of Lebanon. 



the cedars of Lebanon, and fir trees, and 
almug trees. What are the two last, 
aunt ? " 

" They are species of the pine. The 
almug belongs to the cypress division, and 
was used to make musical instruments for 
the temple. Historians tell us that eighty 




The English Yew. 



THE FIXE FAMILY. 109 

thousand men were employed as ' hewers 
on the mountains ' to get these trees for 
building the house of the Lord." 

" I read the other day," said Madge, 
" that the temples of Japan were almost 
hidden by these evergreens, because the 
priests never allow one cut down or even 
trimmed. Do we know any conifers be- 
sides the pines and cedars ? " she added, 
growing more interested. 

11 There are three divisions to the fam- 
ily, the pine, cypress, and yew, and each 
division has a number of species." 

" Where do the yew trees grow ? " 

" Not well in this country ; but history 
tells of yew trees in England growing to 
great age, so that they became emblems of 
immortality, and were planted mostly in 
church-yards. The famous English bow 

J o 

was made of yew, because the wood was so 
tough. The leaves are poisonous to men 
and animals, and insects never attack it. 



HO SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

Then we have the hemlock, with its tannic 
acid used in tanning leather; the balsam 
pine." 

" Oh, yes, Aunt Mary ! " exclaimed 
Daisy ; " that's the pine we run to when we 
cut our fingers ; we just stick a knife into 
one of the little blisters, and the sap that 
runs out will cure it up quicker than any- 
thing." 

" Yes, I know ; and there is the Canada 
balsam, which some call the balm of Gil- 
ead." 

" The larches are evergreens. Do they 
belong to the Pine family ? " asked Madge. 

" Yes ; but they grow best in Europe. 
The most noted are in Scotland. On the 
estates of the Duke of Athol ten thousand 
acres are planted in larches, numbering, it 
is said, fourteen million trees. The wood 
of the fir tree is most durable. Houses 
built of it three hundred years ago show 
no signs of decay." 




Redwood Tree. 



THE PINE FAMILY. 113 

11 Where do pines grow best ? " 

11 Possibly in the West, where there is a 
great variety. The redwood you admire 
grows in the West." 

" Ah, yes ; my desk and chair are red- 
wood, but I had no idea it was even dis- 
tant kin to the curled pine of my mantel 
and doors." 

" Yes ; but the wood, though light and 
beautiful, is not very strong. There is in 
California a curious cousin called the 
sugar-pine, whose sap is sweet, and is used 
in place of sugar by the poorest classes ; 
and in Mexico you will find a nut pine. 
The Mexicans call the nuts pihones, and 
eat them as we do ground peas. Last and 
largest of all this useful family, we must 
remember the gigantic trees of California." 

" O Aunt Mary, are they pines ? " all 
the girls exclaimed at once. 

" Yes ; they belong to the cypress divis- 
ion. The great trees of the Calaveras 



114 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

group are known botanically as Sequoia 
gigantea, or giant redwood." 

Daisy brought her geography to show 
a picture of these immense trees, which 
were some of them thirty-six feet in diam- 
eter, with bark more than a foot in thick- 
ness, and four hundred and fifty feet high, 
and more than a thousand years old. 

" How could one tell the age?" asked 
May. 

" By counting the rings in a section of 
the trunk which has been sawed off — a 
ring is added each year. The new ring 
grows next to the bark." 

" One more question, Aunt Mary," said 
May. " How can we know the members 
of the Pine family ? " 

" They are trees or shrubs with resin- 
ous juice. The leaves are evergreen, and 
needle or awl shaped. The flowers are 
monoecious, and have neither corolla or 
calyx. The buds are scaly ; the seeds are 



THE PINE FAMILY. 115 

two-winged. Should you go to the great 
fair in Chicago in 1892, you may see one 
of these great trees, for they propose to 
cut one in sections and set it up there, so 
that the world may see this giant tree of 
the Pine family." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE LILY FAMILY. 

Four girls sat on the steps of the broad 
piazza with heads bent over, eagerly ex- 
amining some tiny object, when their 
good genius, Aunt Mary, passed by on 
the way to her flower beds. " What now, 
girls ? " she asked. 

u Oh, Aunt Mary, I'd give my head for 
a microscope/' exclaimed one, without 
looking up. 

" That's Kate, I know," said her aunt ; 
" no one else has always so many heads to 
dispose of ; but what would you do with a 
microscope ? " 

" Find out whether this plant belongs 
to the Lily family. You know a prize is 
offered to the one who brings the greatest 
number of specimens from the Liliacecer 

116 



THE LIL Y FA MIL V. \\J 

" No, I did not know it ; but since your 
object is a good one, I will furnish the 
microscope. Look in my desk; right 
hand upper drawer." 

" Oh, thank you, thank you;" and Kate 




Petaloid Corolla of the Lily. 



was gone, to return in a minute with the 
coveted glass. Then the heads came to- 
gether again. A close examination de- 
cided the disputed point, while Aunt Mary 



Il8 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

looked on with interest, remarking, " What 
a pretty perianth, shaded green, lined with 
soft bright white." 

" What do you mean by the perianth ? " 
asked Bessie. 

" The flower leaves are called the peri- 
anth when there is no separate corolla 
and calyx, but all in one, as in one large 
white lily." 

"Well," said Kate, " our little star of 
Bethlehem adds another to our list." 

" Three other names are sometimes 
given to your pretty little flower," said 
Aunt Mary. " In the first place the bo- 
tanical name is Ornithogalum, or ' bird's 
milk' — a Greek expression for anything 
marvellous. But our country folk are 
more exact, and call it ' eleven o'clock 
lady,' because it opens at that hour. 
Then it closes at three o'clock, and so 
gets the comical name of ' Johnny go to 
bed.' " 



THE LIL Y FAMIL Y. 119 

The girls laughed, and Kate labelled 
her specimen "Johnny go to bed, Or- 
nithogalumr 

" No wonder the poor little thing looks 
wilted," said May. " Now, Aunt Mary, 
give us another one of the lily sisters." 

" Out on the lawn there is a group of 
them, but more like giant brothers than 
sisters. Botanically they are yucca plants, 
but their sharp, sword-like leaves give 
them the names of Spanish bayonet, 
Adam's needle, or bear's grass." 

" Surely, that great, fierce plant isn't kin 
to this tiny star ? " 

" Yes ; when it blooms you will find 
the six-parted perianth, six stamens, and 
three pistils, having a three-celled ovary. 
It is a true LiUum? 

" Why do you say true Lilium, Aunt 
Mary ? " 

" Because there are five divisions to the 
Lily family, and the yucca belongs to the 



120 



SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 



lily division, which is the largest and, 
perhaps, the most beautiful. There are 
all the variegated lilies from Japan, which 




Lilies of the Valley. 



were once so rare that ninety dollars was 
paid for a single bulb ; now you get one 
for fifty cents. But none are more beauti- 




Tulips. 



THE LILY FAMILY. 123 

ful than our pure Easter lilies, nor sweeter 
than our dear little lily of the valley, 
which is not confined to the valleys, how- 
ever, but grows high among the cliffs of 
the Alleghany Mountains." 

" Are the hyacinths members of this 
family ? " 

" Yes, even the wild hyacinth, or blue- 
bell of England." 

" I love the sweet white Roman hya- 
cinths best," said Madge. 

" A story is told in mythology," said 
Aunt Mary, " of Hyacinth, a youth be- 
loved of Apollo, and by him accidentally 
killed. The £od could not brin? to life 
the youth, but caused his blood to spring 
from the ground in these white, fragrant 
flowers. And these gay tulips are lily- 
worts also. Examine one of the single 
varieties. See the parallel-veined leaves, 
the regular flower with its six-parted 
perianth, and as many stamens. And be 



124 



SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 



sure to notice the three-celled ovary of 
the pistil. ' Go to Holland for tulips/ is an 
old saying. It was in the seventeenth cen- 




BULB OF THE LlLY. 



tury that there was such wild speculation 
there in tulip bulbs. Six thousand dollars 
was paid for a single rare bulb. The 



THE LILY FAMILY. 125 

government finally interfered and limited 
the price to two hundred francs." 

" What are trilliums, Aunt Mary ? " 

" The name shows that all parts of the 
plant are in threes, as in the wake robin 
and Indian cucumber. Even the leaves 
grow in a whorl of three, around the 
stem." 

" Are there no useful plants in this 
family ? " 

" Yes,^there are medicinal plants ; aloes 
and squills, and the roots of Solomon's 
seal ; and in Turkey they eat the shoots 
of the latter as we do asparagus, to which 
it is a close kin." 

" Asparagus is not much like the other 
members of the family." 

" It is much like some with which you 
are not familiar, the asphodel, for instance. 
It resembles that except in the fruit. The 
ancients planted asphodel in their ceme- 
teries, because they believed that the souls 
of the dead w r ere nourished by its roots. 



126 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

They dedicated the plant to Proserpine, 
and strewed the graves of their friends 
with its pure, white, star-like flowers. 
Another useful product of the lilyworts is 
the dragon's blood, used in paints and 
varnishes ; not the life blood of a horrible 
dragon killed by some St. George, but 
the harmless red juice of another of this 
family — the dragon tree of the Canary 
Islands. One species has a trunk twenty 
feet in diameter, but the tree is not very 
high." 

" Do we eat any of this connection 
besides the asparagus ? " 

" If you like onion, or garlic, or leeks, 
you do." 

" No onions or garlic for me ; but what 
are leeks ? " 

" Only a mild species of onion. The 
Scotch could tell you all about them. An 
old Scotch dish which Sir Walter writes 
about, w r as made by stewing an old fowl 
with leeks ; they called it ' cock-a-leekie.' " 




- 
w 

H 

P 

o 
o 



THE LILY FAMILY. 129 

The girls laughed, and asked Aunt 
Mary for another specimen. 

" Your pretty twining smilax is classed 
by some among the lilies, but the most 
useful one I know of is found in New 
Zealand. It is a tough flax tree, resem- 
bling the yucca, and the most important of 
their plants, since they use it for building 
their houses, and thatch the roofs with the 
leaves, which are from two to six feet long. 
They not only build their houses, but fur- 
nish with it, making even their plates and 
dishes, besides mats and nets, and sails for 
their boats, and fishing-tackle, and bas- 
kets, and clothing, and medicine for the 
sick. The fibre is very tough, and makes 
good cloth." 

" Well," said Kate, " I didn't know the 
Liliacecz were so useful. If they do not 
' toil and spin/ they have some among the 
relations that furnish plenty of material 
for us to do the spinning." 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE GRASS FAMILY. 

Madge came in from among the flowers, 
washed her hands, bathed her hot face, 
and as she heard the tea-bell, walked to 
the dining-room, saying, " I am so tired of 
this horrid grass that I promised grandma 
to keep out of her flower beds. What s 
grass good for, anyway ? Now, mother, I 
know you are going to tell me how my 
cow likes it, and how I like her milk, but 
that don't alter the fact that grass is al- 
ways in the wrong place, and somebody 
has work to get it out of the way. I be- 
lieve the world could do very well without 
the Grass family." 

" I know a little girl who would be the 
first to object if all the Grass family were 
banished," said Mrs. Winter. 

130 



THE GRASS FAMILY. 



131 



" Try me and see, mother. 

" Very well; shall we 
begin now ? " 

" Yes, ma'am ; as soon 
as I get my bread and 
butter." 

" Here is the butter, 
but I cannot give you 
the bread ; it belongs to 
the large family you want 
to banish." 

"What, mother, .this 
light bread?" 

" Certainly ; wheat is 
one of the grasses." 

" Well, then, Til take a 
muffin." 

11 Not now ; the muffin 
is made of corn-meal, and 
corn is another member 
of the Grass family." 

" Dear me, I don't like 




Compound Spike 
Wheat. 



I32 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

brown bread, but I'll have to fall back on 
that." 

" No ; the brown bread is made of rye 
flour. I have often heard you admire the 
fields of rye grass." 

Madge's face fell. She was very hungry 
after her scuffle with the grass among the 
flowers, and now it seemed the trouble- 
some thing was about to get the best of 
her, after all. With a doubtful look she 
handed her plate for a spoonful of rice. 
But again her mother refused ; it was one 
of the banished grasses. 

" Well, mother, you always get the best 
of me. I'll take back all I said. I begin 
to think we could not live without grass, 
but, of course, I did not know such things 
as wheat and corn were grasses." 

" They are the seed or fruit of grass." 

" But, mother, they do not look alike. 
Why do you class them together ? What 
is the coat of arms of this family? " 



THE GRASS FAMILY. 



133 



" In the first place, 
all these stems are 
culms, that is, jointed 
and hollow between 
the joints. Second, 
the leaves have open 
sheaths, enclosing the 
stem at their base. 
And they are ' two 
ranked/ the second 
leaf coming out half 
way around the stem 
above the first, and the 
third leaf exactly above 
the first, the fourth 
above the second, and 
so on, and all have par- 
allel veins. Third, each 
flower is enclosed in a 
glume, or husk. Fourth, 
they are all endoge- 
nous." 




Culm of the Rye. 



134 



SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 




The Cultivated Oat. 



" That means inside 
growing/' said Madge. 

" Yes ; there are no 
layers, but the wood 
and pith is all mixed in 
together, as you will see 
if you cut across a corn- 
stalk." 

" Why, mother, all the 

bread we eat is made 

/ from the Grass family ! " 

" Yes ; and the oat- 
meal, wheat germ, 
hominy, grits, barley; 
and besides that they 
furnish nearly all the 
food for cattle. The 
great loads of hay, the 
barns full of timothy 
and orchard grass, all 
come from your ban- 
ished family. And there 



THE GRASS FAMILY. 135 

is one you are especially fond of and drink 
its juice as readily as Daisy does that from 
the sweet hay." 

" I may chew gum, but I never chew 
grass stems for their juice, mother." 
" How about the sugar-cane ? " 
" Of course I suck the juice from that. 
Surely that is not a member of the fam- 
ily ? " 

11 Look at the coat of arms and see." 
11 Yes ; I know it has a jointed stem 
with wood and pith mixed together. The 
leaves grow in two ranks, and are parallel- 
veined, and form a sheath around the 
stem. Is the root fibrous ? " 

" Yes ; there is no long tap root, and the 
flowers are enclosed in little, scaly bracts, 
or glums. This cane is an important one 
of the grasses. Nearly all the best sugar 
of the world comes from it. Your candy- 
shops would have to close, and no more 
cane-syrup for that sweet tooth of yours, 
No more pop-corn balls either," 



136 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" What, mother, how is that ? " 

"Only that the sugar comes from the 
cane, and the pop-corn, like your bread- 
corn, is first cousin." 

" The corn and cane are the largest of 
the Grass family ; are they not, mother ? " 

" No; there is a distant relative in trop- 
ical countries which grows much larger 
— the bamboo. It runs up from fifty to 
eighty feet high, and the hollow-jointed 
stem is ten inches thick — as large as your 
body. It is a beautiful plant and very 
useful." 

"Do they grind up the seed for bread 
as we do corn ? " 

" No ; only the young, tender shoots are 
used for food, but almost everything is 
made of the stem — houses, water-pipes, 
umbrellas, fishing-rods, baskets, hats, fur- 
niture, ropes, and paper, and so on." 

" Oh, yes ; and I have seen the walking- 
canes made of bamboo. Which of all the 
grasses is the most useful ? " 




A Harvest Scene in Spain. 



THE GRASS FAMILY. 



139 



11 Rice furnishes food to more people 
than any, for the people of China and In- 
dia live almost entirely on rice. Corn and 
wheat are used more in this country." 

11 Do none of the grasses have pretty 
flowers ? " 

" No, perhaps not ; but the feathery 
plumes of the pampas grasses are as beau- 
tiful as flowers." 

"Why, mother," said Madge, as she 
made a survey of the table, " not one thing 
on this tea-table but what is made from 
the Grass family, except the butter ; and I 
suppose you would tell me that Daisy 
could not give us that long, if there were 
no grass. Well, I'll not say anything 
more against the Grass family, only I wish 
it bore pretty flowers of its own, and did 
not take such delight in choking grand- 
mother's." 

" The plants that feed the world do not 
need beautiful flowers to make them valu- 



140 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

able any more than the great oak and 
elm and chestnut trees do. And if the 
grass did not spring up so easily, food 
would be harder to get. Flowers are a 
luxury, and all luxuries must be paid 
for in work or money. When you grow 
weary of pulling the green blades from 
among your flowers, you must remember 
that ; and instead of despising the persist- 
ent grass, respect it the more because it 
so freely and abundantly gives itself for 
the food of the world. Think of a world 
without this Grass family. The cattle 
upon a thousand hills would lie down 
famishing; flowers might blossom, fruits 
ripen, but without bread, the staff of life is 
gone, and man would soon lose strength, 
and hope, and life." 



CHAPTER X. 

THE MINT FAMILY. 

" What are you feeling for, Daisy, in 
grandmother's pocket ? " 

" Grandmother's pocket is Daisy's candy 
store. Look, Frank," said Bessie, as little 
curly-head drew out one dimpled hand 
grasping three mint drops, which she pro- 
ceeded to enjoy, glancing now and then 
up into grandma's face with evident confi- 
dence in future unlimited supply. 

" Ah," said Frank, " I see now the way 
to Daisy's heart." 

" So do I," laughed Bessie, and singing 
gaily, " Oh, peppermint drop of my heart," 
she waltzed the child around so vigorously 
that grandmother had to interfere. 

When they were quieted, May asked : 

141 



142 



SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 



^ 




" Grandmother, why 
do you always get 
mint drops ? They 
are not half so good 
as chocolate." 

" But more whole- 
some," answered grand - 
mother. " Mint is a 
very useful herb." 

" What for ? I have 
never seen it." 

" Oh, yes, it grows 
in the garden, and 
you are extravagant 
in your liking for 
mint sauce." 

" Is that the same 
as this in the candy ? " 

" Certainly; and 
the same as that in your 
mother's menthol lo- 
tion and menthol pen- 



THE MINT FAMILY. 143 

cil, which sometimes helps her nervous 
headaches and soothes her to sleep. The 
botanical name menthol is in honor of a 
nymph said to have been changed into 
this plant." 

" Where is peppermint made ? " 

" In New York, Ohio, and Michigan. 
Many acres are planted with the herb, 
which is cut like hay, dried in the sun, 
and then the oil pressed out of it. The 
larger part is sold to candy-makers." 

" For Daisy," added Bessie. 

Grandma smiled, and added, " It is in 
bloom now; run to the garden and bring 
me a sprig of it." 

Away danced the children, bringing 
back a large bunch of the mint. Only a 
few blooms they found, but enough to 
attract Aunt Mary, who came in as they 
did, and soon had her microscope, examin- 
ing the small flower. 

" The simple common mint," said she, 



144 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" gives its name to a large family of 
plants." 

" Do we know any of them, Aunt Mary? 
Just give us an introduction to the family 
circle, please. ,, 

" Go into your mother's store-room, and 
you will find on her spice-shelf several 
which you have met before. If your eyes 
fail to recognize them, your nose and 
tongue will, for there is thyme, and sweet 
basil, and savory, and rosemary, and laven- 
der, and ditany, and horehound — " 

" Oh, horehound candy for coughs ! 
That bitter stuff ! " 

" Yes, but as good medicine for you as 
kitty's is for her ; you laugh to see her roll 
over it and eat a little sometimes." 

" Why, that is catmint ! " 

" Yes, and one of the family. So is the 
sage, or salvia. The name means saving, 
and was given to the plant because people 
thought a tea made of it would cure 



THE MINT FAMILY. 



145 



almost every disease, 
plants are beautiful. 
That crimson sal- 
via on your flower 
bed is a fine speci- 
men. People in old 
times thought much 
of these herbs. An 
old-fashioned gar- 
den was bordered 
with them. Away 
back further still, 
Pliny recommended 
that the mint pen- 
nyroyal be hung in 
sleeping rooms as 
more healthful than 
roses. " 

" Not our com- 
mon pennyroyal of 
the fields, Aunt 
Mary ? " 



Some of these 




Pennyroyal. 



146 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

"The very same. Do you remember 
the poor old woman who used to sit on 
the curbstone with a basket of lavender to 
sell ? " 

" Oh, yes ; she looked so wistful, and 
then so glad when you bought some 
bunches ; but is lavender a mint ? " 

" Yes ; the name shows that it was 
once much used in ' laving ' or bathing. 
The dried leaves are put in chests of 
linen. ' Laid up in lavender ' was once a 
common expression. It is still used as a 
perfume. So is rosemary, which has 
such a pretty signification, 'dew of the 
sea/ having once grown abundantly on 
the banks of the Mediterranean. All parts 
of the plant have an aromatic odor and 
taste. In Europe it was formerly used 
both for marriage and funeral garlands, 
being the herb of fidelity and remem- 
brance. At present, it is highly esteemed 
in Germany, and florists prepare pots of it 




Wild Thyme. 



THE MI XT FAMILY. 149 

for sale in the windows by earliest spring 
time. Marjoram has also a pretty mean- 
in? — 'delight of the mountains,' but our 
1 sweet marjoram ' will grow in low 
grounds ; so will thyme." 

" I don't know a bank whereon the wild 
thyme blows," laughed May. " Is thyme 
in our garden too, Aunt Mary? " 

" Yes ; not far from the lavender border, 
and in the meadow just beyond the garden, 
you will find a bunch of bruncHa.' 1 

" What is that ? " 

" That is what the French call prunelle. 
An old French proverb says, ' One needs 
no surgeon who has prunelle.' The pop- 
ular name is self-heal. So I suppose it 
was once considered a valuable medicine. 
The botanical name, Brunella vulgaris, 
comes first, from the German Briiun — the 
quinsy, the plant being a remedy for 
quinsy. Vulgaris was added to the first 
name because the plant grew everywhere." 



SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 



" Any more of my 
acquaintances in the 
family connection, 
aunt ? " 

" Yes ; I think you 
have at least read of 
the hyssop used by 
the Jewish priests to 
sprinkle the blood of 
the sacrifices, and of 
the passover. That is 
also a labiate. Do you 
know the meaning of 
that word ? " 

"I think I do. It 
is in my Latin lesson, 
'having lips.' But 
what has that to do 
with plants ? " 

" Look at these mint 
flowers and see ; they 
have two lips. The 




# * 




Hyssop. 



THE MINT FAMILY. 151 

upper one is divided in two parts ; the 
lower one, in three. All the Mint family 
are labiates." 

" Is that the way to distinguish the 
family ? " 

" Not entirely ; for the plants of the Fig- 
wort family are labiates also, but there 
is an important difference. Look at the 
bottom of this pistil ; the germ or ovary is 
deeply divided in four parts, while in the 
figworts they are divided in two parts 
only. Then the Mint family have square 
stems and are aromatic herbs ; the leaves 
are opposite, and the flowers grow in 
clusters or spikes. The foliage of some of 
the family is their chief attraction. Our 
public gardens are made beautiful with 
the showy leaves of the coleus. Lovely 
as flowers are the shaded leaves of crim- 
son, and brown, and orange, and green, 
and yellow, and soft silvery white. Num- 
berless varieties show the skill of the 



152 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

gardener in increasing nature's loveli- 
ness." 

" Any more mints that I can find ? " 
asked Bessie. 

" There are many more in the family," 
replied her aunt, " but not in the garden 
or fields near, except the pretty ground- 
ivy, and motherwort, and — " 

" That must be the best of all," inter- 
rupted Madge, hugging her mother as she 
sat down by her. 

" A very good plant, my dear, if you 
believe the Russian peasants, who say it 
will cure the bite of a mad dog, and pre- 
vent hydrophobia. At any rate, it is con- 
sidered here a good tonic. There is still 
one other mint that you may find — the 
sweet basil." 

" Oh, I know that." 

" Yes, you know the one in the garden, 
but there are forty species of basil, and 
in the East Indies the common people 



THE MINT FAMILY. I 53 

regard the plants with superstitious rev- 
erence because of their supposed power as 
disinfectants. Now run out and get me a 
bouquet of the labiates ; I am very fond of 
their aromatic odors." 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE NETTLE FAMILY. 

Little Robert Winter sat on the door- 
step holding one foot, with face so puck- 
ered that you imagined the nettle he had 
trod upon had gone into the round, fat 
cheek instead of his toe. He was a very 
small boy, however, and that was his first 
experience with nettles; the first time he 
had ever gone barefooted in the country. 
His mother, who appeared just then, knew 
what to do, and soon the toe was all right, 
but Robert declared he wished there 
wasn't a nettle in the whole world. 

" Then you would have to do without a 
good many nice things," said she. 

"What, mother ?" 

" Your ball, for one thing." 
154 



THE NETTLE FAMILY. 155 

" Why, that is made of India rubber." 

" And from the caoutchouc tree," added 
Madge, who had a feeling remembrance of 
spelling the word wrong once upon a 
time. 

" Yes," said Mrs. Winter, u but the caout- 
chouc is one of the Nettle family ; one of 
the most useful." 

11 Where does it grow? " asked May. 

11 In the East Indies, and in South 
America. Beautiful forests of the large 
trees are found in 'India growing on 
the mountains, twenty-two thousand feet 
above the sea level. The natives gash the 
trees in several places and set clay cups 
to catch the dripping juice, which is al- 
most colorless. They mould it, as it hard- 
ens, around clay moulds, thus forming 
hollow tubes for torches ; also into the 
shape of bottles, animals, and many fanci- 
ful forms. It is a custom among the na- 
tives to present a guest with one of the 



156 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

bottles and a hollow tube for squirting 
water into the mouth after eating, and 
from this custom the name ' seringat ' was 
given to both gum and tree. It would 
take some time to tell you all that is made 
of the gum, alone or mixed with other ma- 
terials ; but if you put nettles out of the 
world you could have no rubber ball, 
boots, pants, coat, cap, shoes, or life-pre- 
servers. Then think of the buttons, 
combs, belts for machinery, hose for the 
fireman's reel, and thousands of other 
things." 

" Well," said May, " I guess the rubber 
tree don't have thorns ; but is there any 
other good nettle ? " 

" Oh, yes ; one you are very fond of." 

" I know," said Madge ; " the apple ? " 

" No," laughed her mother, " not that, 

but the fig. Those you saw growing in 

Florida and the dried figs we get from 

Turkey and other foreign countries." 



THE NETTLE FAMILY. 157 

" Best things in the world/' exclaimed 
Robert. " I could eat a hatful. Tell me 
another good eating nettle." 

" I do not know that any of them eat," 
she said, " but if you ever go from Califor- 
nia across to some of the Pacific islands, 
you will find a magnificent nettle tree, the 
bread-fruit, with great leaves more than a 
foot long and ten inches broad, and the 
fruit more than six inches in diameter. 
The seeds, when roasted, are like chest- 
nuts, but the best variety has no seed. 
You should see the ovens in the ground 
in which they bake the pulp after the 
thick shell has been removed." 

" Does it taste like bread ? " asked Bes- 
sie. 

" Like bread made with eggs. The 
fruit must be gathered before quite ripe. 
It will keep for months if buried in the 
earth. The fibrous bark of the tree is 
used to make tapa, or bark cloth." 



I58 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" What strange trees they have in those 
countries," said Madge. " I remember read- 
ing about a banyan tree growing in In- 
dia." 

"Yes; that is nearly related to the x fig 
Robert likes so much. Botanists call it 
Ficus religiosa. It is the most outspread- 
ing member of the Nettle family. One 
tree growing on the banks of the Ner- 
budda sheltered seven thousand men ; 
another covered thirteen acres. The 
branches bend until they touch the 
ground, take root and send up another 
tree, whose branches again bend down to 
take root, and so one tree covers several 
acres. The wood is porous and useless, 
but the bark makes a powerful tonic, and 
the gum a healing plaster for bruises." 

" Good for my sore toe, I guess," put in 
Rob. 

" Perhaps so. I heard once of a plaster 
of figs which a prophet made and put on 



THE NETTLE FAMILY. l6l 

a boil to cure a king ; maybe you would 
like that kind better." 

" Yes, indeed ; but I don't think it 
would get so far from my mouth as my 
toe. Who was the king, mother ? " 

" Look in the second book of Kings and 
find out." 

" Well, now tell me of another nettle 
that's good to eat, please." 

" You like those purple mulberries, I 
believe. The wood of the tree is worth 
more than the berry, being one of the 
most durable of all woods. In England, 
they have a fine black mulberry which they 
esteem highly for desserts. But there is 
something which likes the mulberry better 
than you do, Rob." 

Rob looked his doubts as his mother 
continued, " The silkworm feeds upon it. 
You should see how soon they eat a tree 
threadbare, or perhaps I should say silk- 
bare, for they eat to make silk, you know. 



1 62 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

Then there is another mulberry raised in 
China and Japan for making paper. The 
tree is kept cut back that the young shoots 
may spring up more abundantly. These 
shoots are boiled to free them from the 
bark ; then dried until the fibres separate, 
beaten into pulp, mixed with mucilage, 
and spread out to dry. The paper made 
of this is used by engravers. 

" One other tree has been sometimes 
used to feed silkworms upon, the Osage 
orange. This member of the Nettle family 
gets its name from the Osage Indians. 
They make their bows of its strong, tough, 
elastic wood, and for this reason the 
French call it bois d'arc, which soon be- 
came changed to ' bodock.' The wood is 
yellow, the root a deep orange, yielding 
the yellow dye called fustic. The tree 
is covered with thorns, and makes fine 
hedges. 

" In England the most important mem- 



THE NETTLE FAMILY. 1 63 

ber of the family seems to be the hop vine, 
raised for beer-making, three thousand 




The Hop Plant. 

acres being planted in the one county 
of Kent. Several of our northern and 



164 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

western states plant it also. Like the 
rest of the family, the vine is tough and 
fibrous, and may be used in paper-mak- 
ing." 

" But how in the world, mother," asked 
Robert, " do you know that all these trees 
and plants and vines belong to the Nettle 
family ? They do not all have stinging 
hairs." 

" No ; the botanists look closely at the 
foundation of the flower and plant. All 
nettles are apetalous ; that is, without 
petals. They have no corolla, and the 
stamens and pistils grow in different 
flowers, sometimes in different plants — 
they are either monoecious or dioecious. 
The calyx is free; does not grow on to 
the ovary of the pistil ; there are as many 
stamens as divisions in the calyx; the 
inner bark is tough and fibrous ; the leaves 
have stipules, falling early. The fig has 
no visible flowers ; the flowers are within 



THE NETTLE FAMILY. 



I6 5 



a fleshy tube which ripens into fruit. And 
remember one more division of this family 




Branch of the Elm. 



— the elms, of which you have seen sev- 
eral varieties of beautiful and useful trees." 



CHAPTER XII. 

A FAMILY OF PITCHERS. 

" What a very little pitcher, and what 
long, long ears ! " 

Now there was not any pitcher visible, 
when a very small girl made this remark, 
but there were two " long, long " ears, and 
they were attached to a mite of a white 
rabbit, very pretty and very badly scared. 
Frank Stone had the soft white thing in 
a basket, showing it to " Aunt Charity." 
Why Frank called his sister May Aunt 
Charity he would not tell, but there was 
a tradition in the family that the little 
maiden was of a most inquiring mind, and 
that Frank only gave his pet the name 
when her questions came faster than he 
could answer them. The questions ended 

166 



A FAMILY OF PITCHERS. \6j 

on this occasion with the remark about 
little pitchers, which we can best explain 
in Madge's words : " Well, haven't I heard 
people say, ' Little pitchers have long 
ears ' ? They always looked at me when 
they said it, but I knew they didn't mean 
me, for I was not a pitcher. I think it 
must be this little dear, for it has the 
longest ears I ever saw — all lined with 
pink, too, to match its eyes. Dear me, I 
wish I was a pitcher — I'd like such 
pretty ears." 

" There are pitchers and pitchers," 
wisely remarked Madge's older cousin. 

" Cousin Kate," began Madge, — then 
she corrected herself, for this very aged 
cousin of hers had repeatedly desired her 
to say Cousin Catherine, as more appro- 
priate to the dignity of a young lady of 
fifteen who had entered high school, — 
" Cousin Catherine, show me some of the 
pitchers." 



1 68 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

Now Kate's remark had been only a 
quotation — the very latest, she thought 
with satisfaction ; she had not anticipated 
this practical analysis of its meaning and 
was rather puzzled when called upon to 
produce the "pitchers and pitchers." But 
Aunt Mary — one of those good, conven- 
ient aunts, always on hand at the right 
time — had heard it all and came to 
Kate's relief, saying, — 

" Bring me those studies of plants 
and insects, Kate ; I'll show Madge some 
pitchers." 

While Kate went for the portfolio the 
little pet dexterously slipped upon her 
mother's knee, ready for the pictures and 
pitchers. 

Kate soon returned, looking by this 
time as inquisitive as Madge. The first 
plate was a curious bunch of flowers 
which Kate said she had never seen. 
Aunt Mary said they belonged to a 



A FAMILY OF PITCHERS. 



169 



family which botanists called by the long 
name of Sarraceniacicz, but which was 
better known as the Pitcher Plant family. 




Leaves and Stem of Sarracenia. 



"Where are the ears, Aunt Mary?" 
asked May, w T ho had just come in. 



170 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" I did not promise to show you any 
ears ; these pitchers have none." Evi- 
dently Aunt Mary did not intend to 
explain the old proverb to the child ; 
she did not like it, anyway, and more- 
over, she did like the girl's good, healthy 
curiosity. 

May was not entirely satisfied, but 
had a question ready to fill up any con- 
venient gap, and so asked : — 

" Do these pitchers hold water ? " 

" Yes, they all hold water." 

" Now I remember," said Kate, " we read 
of travellers in some tropical regions 
who were almost famished for water, and 
found it in these little pitchers." 

" Possibly a starving person might 
drink of it, but you would not think it 
either good or wholesome." 

" Why, aunt ? " 

" Because so many had been drinking 
before you; you would probably find it 



A FAMILY OF PITCHERS. ijl 

full of dead insects. They go there to 
drink and never come out any more." 

" Ah, I see," said Kate, " it is a case 
of ' Walk into my parlor, said the pitcher 
to the fly ' ; but why can't they come 
out ? " 

" For a very good reason. The lid of 
the pitcher closes as soon as they enter. 
Then the little fellows are imprisoned. 
Running around, they try to escape, but 
every step presses out of the pitcher a 
sticky juice which flows over them until 
they are drowned in the sweet wine." 

" That is just too bad, Aunt Mary. I 
don't like pitcher plants." 

" Do not find fault with the plant too 
hastily, my dear ; it lives partly on these 
insects, and that is its way of getting its 
food. I saw a little girl eating chicken 
this morning. She did not smother it in 
sweet juice as the flower did the fly : the 
cook only cut its head off," — Kate shud- 



172 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

dered — " but neither the fly nor the 
chicken knew what was coming, so they 
could not suffer in anticipation as we do. 
God made them and all animals for our 
use ; not to torture alive, as some poor 
horses are tortured, but to be killed in- 
stantly, when, if there be any suffering, it 
is only for a moment." 

" But, aunt, why does the insect try to 
escape if it does not suffer in anticipa- 
tion ? " asked Kate. 

" All insects instinctively try to get 
away when confined ; it is a law of self- 
preservation given them by their Creator. 
The fly or spider will not remain quietly 
to let you put your fingers on them 
Wild animals fly from the presence of 
man ; only those which have been raised 
with us will allow us to come near them." 

" Did you say the pitcher plant fed on 
the insects ? " 

" Yes, we are told that the plant juice 



A FAMILY OF PITCHERS. 1 73 

seems to have the power of digesting, just 
as the gastric juice of an animal's stom- 
ach aids in digesting the food eaten by 
the animal, and one curious California 
pitcher — the Darlingtonia — even puts 
out a bait for the insect. A small appen- 
dage smeared with honey hangs at the en- 
trance to the tube, and 

" ' Who goes up that winding stair, 
Will ne'er come down again.' 

" This Darlingtonia is one of the six spe- 
cies found in North America. In Florida 
and Georgia you may find the Drum- 
mond, the spotted and the yellow trum- 
pet; the latter with leaves two feet long 
— a good-sized pitcher they make." 

" Do you mean to say that the leaves 
form the pitchers ? " asked Kate. 

" Yes. Some are simply rolled around 
into a tube which holds water, but the 
most curious are those which grow in real 
pitcher form, with lid and all. In the East 



174 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

Indies there are thirty species of the 
genus Nepenthes. In these, the leaves 
are long and narrow, and at the end con- 
tracted into a tendril by which the plant 
climbs, but farther on this same tendril 




The Pitcher Plant. 



expands into a perfect pitcher five or six 
inches long with a lid exactly the size of 
the pitcher's mouth. This lid grows on 
with a hinge, formed by the same tendril 
which allows the lid to open and close. 



A FAMILY OF PITCHERS. 175 

It remains closed, however, until the leaf 
is grown and ready for the insect-catching 
business. 

" These plants are found in swamps. In 
most of them the pitchers are a light 
green, but in Ceylon there is one with 
blood-red pitchers and with midrib or ten- 
dril so strong that the natives use it for 
cord. In Australia is found the smallest 
species. The cute little pitchers, from one 
to three inches long, would just suit you, 
Madge. They are beautifully finished too. 
Royal Worcester has not anything so fine 
as the lids of these little pitchers daintily 
veined with pink and fringed with deli- 
cate hairs." 

" The hair fringes must be beautiful," 
said Kate. 

" They are not only beautiful, but use- 
ful -— to the plant at least : perhaps the 
insects would not agree with us." 

"Why, Aunt Mary?" 



176 



SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 



" Because these pretty hairs get tangled 
in their feet and wings, and so between 
the sticky juice and the pretty fringe, 
they can't escape. There are other curi- 
ous hair-fringed plants which do not be- 
long to this family, but 
have ways so much like 
them that one suspects 
some relationship. The 
' Venus fly-trap ' for in- 
stance, whose leaves are 
not pitchers, but catch 
unwary insects quite as 
well. Around the edge of 
each leaf is a row of hairs 
like eye-lashes ; and near 
the centre of the leaf are 
six hairs, so sensitive that 
the moment the tiniest insect touches 
them, they spring like a mouse-trap ; the 
leaf shuts instantly, the eye-lash hairs in- 
terlacing like clasped fingers, and holding 




Catchfly. 



A FAMIL Y OF PITCHERS. I ; 7 

tightly the venturesome insect. Then the 
juice of the leaf pours out to digest its 
insect food, very much as our digestion is 
carried on. You can put bits of beef 
upon the leaf and spring the trap in the 
same way, but a bit of wood will have no 
effect ; showing that the plant wants 
something to eat and will not eat wood. 
Should you fasten a fly just out of reach 
of one of these leaves, the leaf will bend 
forward to reach it ! " 

" I never heard of such sensible plants ; 
they are almost like people." 

" They are certainly endowed with won- 
derful instincts. Long ago the common 
people of England believed that the roots 
of these plants would cure small-pox, but 
careful experiment has long since proved 
it to be a mistake." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

ORCHIDS. 

" There comes Aunt Charity ; I wonder 
what she wants to know now." 

" Something you might do well to learn, 
perhaps," said Mrs. Winter. " May is a 
dear little questioner — you must not tease 
her, Frank." 

" She don't mind it, auntie. She's a 
living, breathing interrogation point, and 
says she isn't ashamed of it, and don't 
mind the name, especially when I abbre- 
viate it to Charry. Now listen, Madge," 
he whispered as May came closer. 

Sure enough, the little girl only waited 
to give a loving kiss to her aunt and a 
nod to her cousins, then said : — 

" Aunt Mary, please tell me the differ- 

178 



ORCHIDS. 179 

ence between a parasite and an epiphyte. 
I'm all mixed in my botany." 

" Of course you are," exclaimed Kate ; 
" that is what botany is for, with its long, 
hard names. I wonder why you like it." 

" The names mean something, if you 
take the trouble to find it," said May. 

" That is true," said her aunt ; " now let 
us find out about these two. Frank knows 
something of Greek and Latin ; perhaps 
he may give us help. We'll promise to 
ask questions as fast as he can answer 
them, won't we, girls ? " 

Frank thought that would be " taking 
advantage of a fellow." — " Besides, auntie," 
said he, " I have been out of school long 
enough to get rusty — but I think epiphyte 
is a Greek w r ord. I know epi is a Greek 
prefix meaning ' upon ' ; I believe the 
whole word means a plant that has grown 
upon another plant. Parasite is Latin, I 
forget its meaning — suppose it is about 
the same." 



l8o SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" That is where May stumbled," said 
Mrs. Winter. " The literal meaning of 
parasite is one who eats at another's 
table, and earns his welcome by flattery. 

" In botany, it is a plant that lives on 
some other plant and feeds on its juices. 
In zoology, it is an animal which lives on 
some other animal. The two words are 
very different, and describe different kinds 
of plants. An epiphyte clings to another 
plant and adorns it, but feeds on air — is 
an air-plant, in fact. The parasite roots 
itself in another plant and sucks the life 
sap out of it. 

" People are sometimes called parasites, 
you know." 

" I'd rather be an epiphyte," said May. 

" Yes indeed, one can help to beautify 
other lives without drawing the life from 
them. But what have you read of epi- 
phytes, May ? " 

" Not much, aunt ; only that there are 




Orchids (and Petunia"). 



ORCHIDS. 183 

one or two species in the United States. 
Did you ever see any ? " 

" Yes, in South Georgia and Florida 
I saw clinging to the branches of the 
beautiful magnolia a little plant with pur- 
ple, greenish flowers, and hanging from the 
oaks and pines there was the long moss, 
which is no moss at all, but an air-plant 
common in those Southern states. In the 
cemetery of Bonaventure, at Savannah, it 
hangs, sweeping its gray-black fringes to 
the ground. One could almost imagine 
that Nature had put on mourning for her 
dead. You have all seen the mistletoe ? 
Well, that is a parasite; so is the yellow 
vine called ' Dodder.' But some of the 
most beautiful plants in the world are 
epiphytes." 

" What are they, mother? " asked Madge. 

" The orchids ; very strange and beau- 
tiful plants. A garden of tropical orchids 
would resemble a garden of birds, and 



1 84 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

butterflies, and spiders, and all kinds of 
curious things, blossoming over the trees. 
Those of the United States are not so 
fanciful and grow out of plain Mother 
Earth — very wet earth it is, in bogs and 
marshes, where boys and girls cannot 
get at them in their picnics." 

" Oh dear ! " exclaimed May ; " I was 
just going to propose a picnic, to hunt 
them." 

" You may find one, now and again, 
straying out into society on the edge of 
the low grounds ; and a few simple species 
grow higher up. Many conservatories 
have them, but they come from foreign 
countries." 

" What species have we here, aunt ? " 

" Quite a number, dear. There are the 
white, and yellow, and purple fringed 
orchids, whose lip-like petals are cut in 
delicate fringes. In one of them — the 
Calopogon, or ' beautiful beard ' — the lip 




Forms of Orchidaceous Flowers. 



ORCHIDS. 187 

seems to be fastened on with a hinge and 
bearded with long white, yellow, and pur- 
ple hairs. Another is called ' Ladies' 
Tresses,' the petals being twisted into 
spiral curls ; a more curious one is the 
Lady's Slipper." 

" Does it really resemble a slipper ? " 
asked Kate. 

" Certainly, one of the Chinese pattern, 
thick and short, and turned up at the toe. 
Curiously enough, there are two long, 
narrow green leaves growing from where 
the slipper should be tied. They are not 
tied, however, but hang down several 
inches, just about the width and length 
of slipper strings." 

" Fairy slippers ! " said May. " What 
colors are they ? " 

" Satin-white for the fairy dance, dainty 
canary for evening wear, and deeper yel- 
low for dress parade." 

" Must be Netherland fairies, with that 
yellow livery," suggested Frank. 



1 88 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

" Or possibly the slippers belong to 
the trousseau of another member of the 
Orchis family, — Arethusa, the fountain 
nymph, — a very pretty little rose-pink 
nymph growing out of a very ugly foun- 
tain, one of the wet bogs, north." 

" Is that all, auntie ? " 

" Oh, no ; it is a large family, with as 
many species as Solomon had proverbs. 
We have been talking only of the simpler 
kinds which grow in this country. 

" The most beautiful and wonderful 
plant known in the world is an orchid of 
Central America, El Spirito Santo, the 
' Holy Spirit plant.' The petals form a 
case of alabaster whiteness, within which 
is enclosed a delicate bird with wings out- 
spread, almost perfect in form. The 
natives, with superstitious reverence, carry 
it in festivals, as representing the Holy 
Spirit." 

" Are there no useful orchids, auntie ? " 
asked Kate. 



ORCHIDS. 189 

" It is always useful to be beautiful, as 
God intended, and we may be sure that 
any beautiful plant helps the world to 
praise God. When we learn as much of 
orchids as we know of other plants, we 
may find many useful things they have in 
store for us. One species furnishes our 
vanilla ; another, a strong glue, hence its 
name, ' Putty Root ' ; but it is also called 
4 Adam and Eve."' 

"Why so, aunt?" 

" The only reason we can imagine is 
that the bulbs grow in pairs, the second 
coming always just in front of the first — " 

" Eve-like," whispered Frank. 

" The oldest of the pair dies, and the 
second puts out a bulb in front, and so on, 
year by year ; the position of the plant 
gradually changing as the years go on ; 
thus — 

" ' The orchis takes 

Its annual step around the world.' ' : 



190 



SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 



" Rather slow walking," remarked Frank. 
" Yes, but step by step one goes a long 
way, you know." 




Tubers and Rootlets. 



"You like the tortoise pace then, my 
good aunt ? " 

" Not at all, Frank. On the contrary, I 
believe the tortoise not only slow, but 



ORCHIDS. 



I 9 I 



lazy, and prefer the hare. The fable only 
meant to teach that perseverance accom- 
plishes more than fitful effort, however 
wonderful." 

" What coat of arms does this distin- 
guished family wear ? " asked May. 




Floral Envelope. 

" Their escutcheon is very plainly 
marked in the peculiar structure of the 
flowers. The corolla and calyx are one, — 
a perianth, — and that grows on to the 
ovary or lower part of the pistil, while the 



192 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY. 

stamens grow on to the upper part, either 
the style or stigma : they are gynan- 
drous. The irregular flower is in three 
parts, one of them larger and of different 
shape — so lip-like, oftentimes, that the 
name Sabellum was given it. Insects 
carry the pollen masses from one plant 
to another. At the bottom of the flower 
tube is a drop of honey ; in reaching after 
this, the insect gets its long proboscis 
smeared also with pollen dust, which it 
carries to the next flower. In Madagascar 
there grows an orchid with the flower 
tube, or nectary, nearly a foot deep, and 
there also we find a moth with proboscis 
to match. Evidently the Creator de- 
signed the plant and insect for each 
other." 

" But how many proverbs did Solomon 
write ? " asked May, edging in a parting 
question as she saw her aunt rising to go. 

" Ah, I did not say. Ask your Sunday- 
school teacher." 



ORCHIDS. I93 

May at first looked disappointed, then 
called to her aunt : — 

" Stop one moment, Aunt Mary, please. 
Won't you promise to give us as many 
talks about plants as Solomon had prov- 
erbs ? " 

" Ah, little friend, you have me now," 
said Aunt Mary, laughing; " that would 
be too long a promise. But come to me 
to-morrow, and we will talk it over." 

To-morrow brought not only May, but 
all the cousins, and all pleading for " talks 
about plants," " wild-flower picnics," and 
fern excursions — not one word about 
studying botany. Aunt Mary proposed a 
club, which should meet once a week, with 
books and microscopes for the real study 
of plants from root to seed. 

" Will you meet with us ? " asked May. 

" Once a month," she answered, " and 
you may come to me whenever in doubt 
how to class a flower or trace a family 
likeness." 



194 SHORT STUDIES IN BOTANY, 

The club was formed. It met generally 
in the woods, and all that summer the 
trees, and flowers, and ferns, and mosses 
listened to wise discussions about them- 
selves, surprised to learn how wonderfully 
they were made ; while the girls declared 
with Aunt Mary, that Solomon must have 
been studying botany when he said : " He 
hath made everything beautiful in his 
time." 



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